The seller had acquired the then-vacant parcel in 2005 for $2.9 million and developed it into Ballard Station that year. The center houses a Shell gas station and Enterprise Rent-A-Car location.

The building sits on 1.8 acres at the northwest corner of Poplar Avenue and Crisscross Lane just east of Poplar’s intersection with Houston Levee Road. The Shelby County Assessor of Property’s 2013 appraisal was $2.1 million.

In conjunction with the purchase, 1990 Poplar LLC filed a $1.4 million loan trust deed through BancorpSouth Bank. Rafiq Devji signed the deed as secretary of the borrower.

Source: The Daily News Online & Chandler Reports

– Daily News staff

UTHSC Vice Chancellor Wins Health Care Award

Kennard Brown, executive vice chancellor and chief operating officer of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, has received the Healthcare Education Award from the Nashville-based Council on Workforce Innovation.

The statewide award, presented at the 2014 Healthcare Diversity Forum in Nashville, recognized Brown’s efforts in promoting diversity in health care education. The regional forum, which drew administrators, clinicians, educators, human resources specialists and business leaders, focused on the financial value of diversity in the health care workforce, and discussed resources for advancing quality health care delivery for underrepresented populations.

The Council on Workforce Innovation is part of the National Organization for Workforce Diversity, a private, public and nonprofit coalition to promote workforce diversity initiatives.

– Don Wade

Race Judicata 5K to be Held Saturday

The Race Judicata 5K fundraiser for Memphis Area Legal Services will be held Saturday, April 5, at 5 p.m. at Downtown’s Mississippi River Park.

The annual race is hosted by the Student Bar Association at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law.

Racers can register at racejudicatamemphis.org in advance or at Mississippi River Park, at Jefferson Avenue and Riverside Drive, starting at 4:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon.

The race features food and live music as well as medals for the top-placing runners in divisions organized by gender and age group.

The entry fee is $20 in advance or $25 the day of the race.

– Bill Dries

Malco to Leave Wolfchase in 2017

Rather than renew the lease to its cinema inside the Wolfchase Galleria mall when it ends in 2017, Malco has decided to replace it by building a new cinema on U.S. 64, west of Houston Levee Road.

Malco spokeswoman Karen Scott said it’s a result of the Memphis-based theater chain preferring to build free-standing facilities moving forward, rather than operate inside someone else’s facility, as it has done at Wolfchase.

“The Highway 64 corridor is the right place for our future theater, and the property has been in the family for decades, waiting for the right time,” she said.

– Andy Meek

Loaded for Bear Agency Teams with Crosstown

Loaded for Bear, a local advertising, graphic design and public relations agency, has announced a partnership with the Crosstown redevelopment project.

The company announced in a Facebook post Wednesday, April 2, that “we look forward to working alongside this visionary group to realize the epic potential of a building, a neighborhood and a city.”

The company told The Daily News that relationship at this point means the agency is working with the Crosstown project for branding purposes.

– Andy Meek

April is TVA Energy Month

The Tennessee Valley Authority is partnering with local power companies and five science museums across Tennessee, including the Memphis Pink Palace Family of Museums, to offer TVA Energy Month in April.

Special activities, demonstrations and hands-on events are planned for children and adults, exploring how energy is created and how it is used in our daily lives.

TVA and local power companies are sponsoring Energy Month at the five museums that make up The Science Alliance of Tennessee: the Pink Palace Family of Museums, Adventure Science Center in Nashville, Hands On Regional Museum in Johnson City, Creative Discovery Museum in Chattanooga and East Tennessee Discovery Center/The MUSE in Knoxville.

City Beer Sales Bill Headed to Haslam

A bill to allow local governments to obtain permits to sell beer is headed for Gov. Bill Haslam's desk after being approved by the House on Thursday.

The measure sponsored by Republican Rep. Ryan Hayes of Knoxville was passed on 78-8 vote. The Senate voted 27-4 in favor of the bill last month.

The bill seeks to codify the wide practice of municipal facilities like golf courses selling beer after a recent state attorney general's opinion found that state law limited permits to private entities.

That opinion was issued after Clarksville officials raised concerns about a 2012 ordinance allowing beer sales at city-owned venues for special events.

Other cities like Nashville decided to continue selling beer at golf courses while the Legislature considered updating state law on the matter.

– The Associated Press

Children's Services Releases Child Death Figures

Tennessee's Department of Children's Services has published the first set of child fatality statistics since an agency overhaul following revelations that child welfare officials did not know how many children were dying in DCS custody.

The statistics released this week were gathered under a new process for reporting, counting and investigating deaths.

The primary concern from lawmakers and the public has been cases where DCS workers were aware of abuse or neglect allegations and may have failed to act.

The Tennessean reports the agency investigated 245 deaths from 2013, finding evidence of abuse or neglect in 40 cases. Not all investigations are complete, but DCS says that in 232 of those cases the children were not in state custody. However, 53 percent of those children been investigated by child welfare workers within the three years before their deaths.

DCS Deputy Commissioner of Child Safety Scott Modell said the agency will monitor those figures.

State Rep. Sherry Jones, D-Nashville, warned that the fact that most of the children who died were not in DCS custody could be misleading.

"If we have placed children with abusers – and we do it all the time – and the child dies, the child is not in DCS custody, but DCS is the entity that placed them back in an abusive situation," she said.

Jones is a frequent critic of the agency, but she praised the department's new method for tracking deaths. In 2012, Jones found DCS had broken the law by not reporting child deaths to lawmakers. Resulting scrutiny led DCS to revise its count of child deaths – increasing it at least five times before settling on a final number.

– The Associated Press

Unemployment Aid Applications Rise to 326,000

The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits rose 16,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 326,000. Despite the increase, the number remains close to pre-recession levels and points to stable hiring.

The Labor Department said Thursday that the four-week average of applications, a less volatile measure, inched up 250 to 319,500.

Applications are a proxy for layoffs. They have fallen back to roughly pre-recession levels, an indication that companies are letting go of fewer workers and expect solid economic growth in the months ahead.

The low level of applications for benefits has boosted optimism about how many jobs employers added in March. Weekly claims for unemployment aid have reached a level that is typically consistent with monthly job gains of more than 200,000.